stage magic – Page 27 – MagicShow.Tips

Magic and Comedy Show

On Saturday I performed my show for a sold out audience at the Spokane Comedy Club! When I’m performing at on the road at a public show, I always try to reach out to the local magic club. The Spokane Magic Club turned out in force for the show! It was great having them in the audience.

These daytime shows are a lot of fun to do. Years ago when I was in my early 20’s I opened for Brad Upton at a lot of comedy gigs. At the time I was doing a lot of school assemblies during the day. Brad mentioned that being able to get paid to do entertainment during normal people’s workday was like finding gold. At the time, I didn’t realize how correct he was. As I’ve gotten older and when I’m home, I got to bed at 9pm, the later gigs are more work. I still love doing them, however these 4pm shows I’ve been doing at comedy clubs are great, I’m done by dinner time!

Here’s my 55+ minute show from Saturday in 44 seconds:

@louiefoxx
55 minutes of comedy magic in 44 seconds! #magicshow #magician #comedymagic #spokanecomedyclub #spokanemagician
♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Another thing that’s fun is that these shows put kids into an environment that is normally just for adults. That gives these shows a special energy that you don’t get at a community center gig and leads to amazing shows!

-Louie

Parasol Magic

When I was 17 years old I won a magic contest at a magic convention. I don’t remember if there was any cash in the prize, but there was a lot of magic donated from the dealers. One of the things that I got was Shimada’s Stevens Greater Magic VHS tape. That tape introduced me to magic Shimada. One of the acts that Shimada was famous for was his parasol act.

I’ve always thought that producing parasols looked great and better than a more modern umbrella. I think that people connect umbrellas with the self opening feature and less so with a more Asian parasol. Yes, I understand that umbrella and parasol mean the same thing, and intentionally using them to refer to different things.

Parasol productions are very cool, visual and fill the stage, however I don’t think most routines pass the “drive home test”. That’s were people in the audience talk about the tricks on the drive home. Parasols pack small and pop open and everyone knows that. That’s the weak spot in parasol productions.

OK, so I’ve wanted to do a parasol magic for years, but is doesn’t really fit my personality (and costuming). Then the other day I was at the store and saw some cocktail parasols. I bought a couple of packs of them and started playing with different ideas of things to do with them.

Let’s see what I come up with…

-Louie

Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte

Here’s a packet trick from the 1980’s that I came across.

I think Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte is a pretty solid routine. Here’s me doing the routine and my thought on how to improve it:

It’s really a small change at the end, and I think Nick really nailed it with this one. I’d change the patter, but it’s good and worth checking out if you find one at a magic swap meet!

-Louie

A-paw-colypse Meow

On Friday I’m performing in a cabaret show called Morbid Curiousitease. I don’t do a lot of these burlesque shows anymore, for several reasons, but the one I’m going to talk about to today is because they are usually themed. It makes sense, if you’re putting on a monthly show, you need to have people performing different acts. I think it’s easier for a dance based act that’s 3 mins to come up with a new routine every month that it is for a talking act. I’m not saying its EASY for a dance act, but I think it’s easier than for a talking act.

I took this gig because the producer is cool and I want to support them. They also said that I don’t need to follow the theme, however I’m looking at this as a challenge. The them this month is “cults”, so I need to either create something specific for this show, or figure out a way to make something I already do fit the theme.

In my morning writing, I’ve been jotting down ideas and I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do. Here’s the routine:

“My wife and I love watching documentaries on cults. On these cards the names of five docs about cults that we’ve watched. Give me a number between one and five…”

Remove the number selected and show the other ones, then put all the unselected cards away.

“You picked Apocalypse Meow, which is a cat cult! Cats are really little furry cult leaders. I really think they missed the mark, it should have been called A-paw-colypse Meow! They’re charismatic, even after they’re A-holes to you, you still want their love and you gladly clean their toilet!”

Direct attention to an oversized envelope that’s on your table.

“I put a picture of my wife’s favorite cult leader in here, let’s see if it’s the same as the cult you picked…”

Open the envelope to show the picture of a cat!

“Who belongs to the feline cult? What’s your tiny cult leader’s name?”

That’s it, it’s an intro that then gets me into the routine I do about my cat. I’m only doing a 10 min spot and that routine is 7-8 mins. I think I’ll close with my rope routine that I can connect to the cat routine as “my cat’s favorite trick”.

There you go, it only took about three mornings of writing to figure that out!

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Jason Andrews

In this episode we welcome in magician Jason Andrews. We talk about how growing up as a kid in Las Vegas gave him access to magic shows and how he was able to get a scholarship to magic camp.

He explains what it’s like competing in magic competitions and how he once competed against Louie. We learn about his career in magic and how he made the decision during the pandemic to give it up and follow a different passion. The best interview with a magician turned pilot to date.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Flag Magic Done Bad

One thing that drives me nuts is how performers use and treat the US flag in their show. I’m not the most patriotic person in the world, however one thing that stuck with me from school as a kid is when we learned about the US Flag Code. The Flag Code are rules that define the US flag, but also how to display and handle it. Once you learn it, you’ll see violations everywhere from flags hung backwards at the grocery store, to displayed on vehicles wrong (FYI, flying it from the middle of the tailgate of your pickup truck is incorrect).

Now let’s get to performers using flags. If you do the bag you put silks into and then that turns into the flag, technically you’re violating:

§ 8 (h) The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

However using the flag as a receptacle isn’t seen to the audience, but does that make it right?

If you do mismade flag, its it neatly folded before you load it into the change bag, or do you stuff it in there? And then at the end of the trick, what do you do with the flag? If you put it in your case, do you make sure no other props get set on it?

A few months ago I worked with a band who had a flag hung from their singer’s mic stand.

Unfortunately the flag is hung upside down! This is a big NO NO for hanging the flag. There’s a very specific reason to hand a flag upside down and it is:
§ 8 (a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

If you use a US flag in your show, you should read and know the US Flag Code and follow it!

-Louie

Gimmicking Post Cards

I do a card trick that I call “choices” where the audience narrows down cards by eliminating them until there is one card left and that matched a prediction that I have made. The overall presentation is about me making bad choices in life, and honestly from a presentation standpoint doesn’t need to be a card trick, it could literally be anything that’s narrowed down.

Since it doesn’t need to be playing cards, I was trying to think of what I could replace them with and decided to use postcards.

You can read more about the postcards on a previous blog post here.

By switching props from jumbo cards to slightly smaller postcards I can add an additional way to show the postcards all to be different. I should note this routine at its bones is essentially Al Koran’s 5 Star Miracle. One of the things that I added to the postcards was to cut them short, so I can do a riffle display to show them all different.

This little bit allows me to show them a bit more freely. The postcards are soo visually different that if I spread them all in a face, I think the repeating pattern would be more obvious than with playing cards.

Now I need to make a choice and figure out if I want to keep the presentation as is, or try to write something new.

-Louie

Creative Problem Solving at the Gig!

One of the holiday parties I did this month was a HUGE event with 1,600 people. One thing the event planner didn’t give me was any sort of credentials to get in and out of the building once the event started. I honestly didn’t think about it until after my roving set and I was going to move that gear and clothes to my car to make packing out after the show quicker.

Luckily the green room was for all the “vendors” and I happened to be chatting with someone from the security company. I asked if the security at the parking lot door would let me back in and he said no. His suggestion was to call the event planner and ask for a lanyard. With the event underway and an event this large (it took up two floors of the convention center!) they last thing I want to do is bug the event planner for a lanyard/badge. They’re probably dealing with a lot of problems, like catering issues or whatever.

Here’s the solution I came up with. I learned that the security company was all retired cops and they all knew each other. I took a picture with the guy I was chatting with and got his name and number.

When I tired to get back into the building I was stopped by security how pressed me about me not having a lanyard with a badge. I showed them the picture and told them to call Jeff and he’d vouch for me. As soon as they saw the picture, they let me in!

Sure, asking the event planner for a badge is 100% reasonable. However I try to be easy to work with and minor problems myself. That’s a big secret to success in entertainment, be easy to work!

-Louie

Smile Harder!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do show wearing a mask, but recently did one!

This was a show at a senior assisted living facility and many still have mask policies, however most allow you to take it off while performing. This show didn’t allow me to take it off during the show.

Performing while masked makes connecting with the audience soo much harder! One thing that I do is I smile soo much bigger than I would do in a normal show. People can tell when you’re smiling while wearing a mask, but you need to smile BIG to have it play further back.

Also the show that I do at senior facilities can be done as a “no contact” show with no audience volunteers onstage or handling any props. This is a good option to have for your senior show as its not always an option to bring people onstage.

-Louie

When The Stage is the Floor

A common thing when performing in ballrooms is that your performing area is the floor. For whatever reason there is no stage, or the stage is unusable. Working on the floor is like performing standing in a hole. Pretty much anything held below your armpits can’t been seen by the second row.

Here’s my “stage” from a recent gig:

To add some height to my show I travel with a folding stool.

I stand on the stool for a lot of parts of the show to elevate me to make my hand held props much more visible. It also makes ME much more visible to the audience and makes it easier to connect with them as I can look them in the eyes.

A folding stool is cheap and easy to travel with. Get one, put it in the trunk of your car and you’ll always have it ready to go!

-Louie